Spanish badminton star Carolina Marin comfortably advanced to the quarter-finals of the Indonesia Masters with a 21-10, 21-15 victory here on Thursday over Denmark's Line Kjaersfeldt.
Marin came out of the blocks quickly at the Gelora Bung Karno Sports Palace in Jakarta to take the first game in less than 15 minutes, wrapping it up when Kjaersfeldt dumped a forehand into the net, reports Efe.
The Spaniard then jumped out to an 8-2 lead early in the second game and rode that advantage to a routine victory even though the players split the final 26 points of the match.
She finished off the contest with an outstanding down-the-line backhand that Kjaersfeldt punched into the net.
"Happy to be in the quarterfinals in Indonesia. I felt quite good in today's match (and) was in control from the start," the world No. 5 said afterward.
"I struggled a bit more in the second set, but I'm especially pleased that I was very focused on my strategy and my game plan," she added.
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Next up in Friday's quarter-finals for the reigning Olympic women's singles gold medalist will be Chinese world No. 9 He Bingjiao, who advanced to that stage with a come-from-behind 18-21, 21-15, 21-18 win Thursday over South Korea's Lee Jang-mi.
Marin has won all three of her previous matches against He although she barely eked out their last contest at the 2017 China Open 21-15, 22-24, 22-20.
The Spaniard could square off in the semi-finals against Taiwanese world No. 1 Tai Tzu-ying in a rematch of last week's Malaysia Masters semi-final contest, in which Tai saved four match points en route to a 12-21, 21-15, 23-21 victory.
The Indonesia Masters is the second Super 500 event of the inaugural season of the multi-tier BWF World Tour, which comprises most of the year's biggest badminton tournaments.
Three Super 1000 events (second-highest tier), five Super 750 tournaments (third-highest), seven Super 500 events (fourth-highest) and 11 Super 300 events (fifth-highest) will be held throughout the year leading up to December's BWF World Tour Finals (highest tier) in Ghangzhou, China.
The 2018 BWF World Championships, which will be held in late July and early August in Nanjing, China, and is the biggest tournament on this year's badminton calendar, is not a BWF World Tour event.
--IANS
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